Conceptual introduction to tutorial
What is fry screaming? Introduction I have listened metal for years, played guitar in a local metalcore band and decided to pick up vocals for a new project. It was then that my world turned upside down: I learned of the existence of fry screaming. I thought there was only one way to scream: just scream. I later found out this type of screaming I was used to (doing myself) is called ‘False cord’ screaming. After finding out what fry screaming was I started to gather as much information as possible but''' to learn how to fry scream can be really stressful. It was and still is for me. There is so little material and information to depend on. I have watched several internet video’s, searched through internet and tried finding torrents and/or written tutorials. I found out there isn’t a lot written about fry screaming in full extent. The aim of this tutorial and /r/fryscreaming is to contribute to the information on fry screaming available on the internet for everyone to learn. My biggest and most helpful source of information was the DVD ‘zen of screaming 2’ by Melissa Cross. If you are serious about learning to fry scream, you should pick it up and pay special attention to the chapter ‘types of screams’. This tutorial will explain fry screaming the same way as on the DVD. However, the main goal of this tutorial is to give more depth and more ways to approach fry screaming. Everyone can add to this tutorial and make it bigger, better and most importantly more helpful for you, me and everyone who helps making this. At First it is really important to set clear what fry screaming is and what it isn’t. Fry screaming isn’t inhale screaming for example. A fry scream is produced by using the vocal fry, which is the raspy sound you make when you talk in your lowest voice, or when you try to imitate that kid from the grudge. When you still are not sure on what vocal fry is, than do a hum and slow it down, until you end up with a crackling sound. When you push that sound with your diaphragm, you will produce the scream. This is a really simple explanation of the technique and this is how you find the instructions all over the internet. There is another variation which includes mimicking as if you are breathing onto a window, and then add diaphragm and voila. As simple as this sounds, and probably is once you have learned it, as a beginner it’s not helpful enough to be confident with something that concise. After watching the Zen of screaming (Which I will refer to as ''ZOS''''' from now on) I learned there are a couple of really important aspects to fry screaming, like the proper use of overtones, flow, the space in throat and so forth. I also become very insecure about the fact whether volume was important in fry screaming. Melissa Cross shows in ZOS that when you put too much force to it, you will block the voice. On several occasions I found people saying that it’s about the amount of air that passes through, and that harder volumes can (and should) be reached. To be honest, I still don’t know what standards are to be met if I would compare volumes with the professionals, because I haven’t got the slightest clue on how professionals do this. I’ve tried searching studio footage of bands that use fry screaming, but I haven’t found one where I can hear what the real volume is of the scream. ZOS teaches that volume is taken care of by the microphone. I have settled this matter for a bit, but it comes back from time to time. There are a lot of aspects about the current situation and fry screaming that held me back in my process: little to no information on the internet, besides some youtube video’s, short articles and less than a dozen posts on random forums. What the preferable volume is for a professional/legit fry scream and no real reference material.